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Ramblin' Man

18.09.08 Graeme Neill

There are nomadic book trade careers and then there is Rob Urquhart's. The manager of W H Smith's Gatwick South stores, who won the Bookseller Manager of the Year at the Retail Awards last night, has spent 34 years with the company and he reckons he has clocked more than 2,500 miles in house moves over that time. His career has taken in Cardiff, Bournemouth, Newcastle upon Tyne, Edinburgh, Falmouth, Dundee, Glasgow and Lewes before finally settling in Gatwick, where he has worked for the past 14 years.

"I actually thoroughly enjoyed the moves," he laughs. "I got to know Britain very well, which not many people get to do. You also get to know the different people too—you can't generalise obviously and say ‘all the Scots are like this' but you learn about the little quirks that different areas have, which is fascinating."

Because of the timing of his moves his family ended up a neat encapsulation of the British Isles. Urquhart was born in Wales, his wife in England and their two children during his stints in Edinburgh and Dundee.

With his early career dominated by departures and arrivals, it is probably no surprise he eventually settled at Gatwick South. In total, Urquhart is responsible for seven stores, both airside and landside, and around 200 members of staff. The stores vary from the maps-and-guides-heavy branch in the arrivals area to the busiest, more fiction-centric shop in the departure lounge.
Urquhart confesses to having something of a short attention span, so the variety of his job at Gatwick suits him. "Every day is like Christmas Eve," he says. "At that time of year, those couple of weeks are pacey and exciting. But at Gatwick, it is like that every single day. How you deal with that is a challenge because it affects how you lead people."

Terminal velocity
He has dealt with the challenges well, according to the Retail Awards judges, spearheading innovations such as mobile tills to clear queues and get more people in the shop. One judge said: "Clearly he's a very capable manager . . . but what makes him outstanding is this ability to exploit his specific selling environment to the full, and really shift books."

One of his shops was the first WHS branch to shift one million books in a calendar year (in 2007). His stores have made eye-popping sales on specific titles; for example achieving an eight per cent market share of Nielsen Bookscan's Total Consumer Market for Jeff Abbot's Panic.

Gatwick South is the airport's busiest terminal, serving the majority of the 35 million passengers that pass through it each year. Urquhart spends as much time on the tills as he can. "At the airport, there are just so many people to interact with, helping passengers with inquiries and giving them the best offers we can," he says. "I love it when people say, ‘There's a book I know but I'm not sure.' When you find them Divorcing Jack five minutes later, it's a great feeling."

Despite upping sticks and moving to the other side of the British Isles on command in his early days, one thing that has not changed is who he works for. Urquhart says that the reason he has stayed with WHS for so long is the atmosphere within the company. "I can pick up the phone and everyone understands what you are looking for," he says. "I don't know whether you would get that in any other place. It excites me that if I have an idea or see an opportunity, I know I can easily talk to someone about it. I do feel that I am making a difference and that is a hell of a feeling."

W H Smith Profile Graeme Neill

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